One night after a long day I was startled to find this man seated by the doorway into the parking lot. I'd see him every night that week passing time on his laptop or on his mobile phone. Then I would see him in the mornings when I got into work. On Thursday night, however, I saw him sitting in one of the bigger chairs, engrossed in a book.
I noticed the book cover was backwards, as in the front cover was on the back. I asked the guard, Stephen, what he was reading. From the artwork I asked if it was manga. I had hit it right on the money! Stephen is reading book 13 from the "Death Note" series. Before heading into work today Stephen stopped by the Border's down the street in search of another manga book but when he saw that Book 13, the latest book from the series, was available he HAD to grab his copy right then and there.
The title and cover alone has me intrigued. Stephen explains that there are two main characters in the story - an evil doer and the good guy detective. These two geniuses have a mental battle! There is this notebook where one writes someone's full name and method of death. As a result that person written up in the book dies that way. So if I wrote Stephen's name in there along with "hit by oncoming traffic" poor Stephen becomes roadkill.
People have been missing and so the good detective mentally battles the evil doer to stop him from killing off all these people. "Everything happens mentally. You even have to concentrate hard when writing down someone's name, ensuring that you are thinking of the right person."
I was flipping through the book and along with the manga storyline itself I saw what looked like charts and editor's notes in the margin. Stephen explained that this was also a "How-To-Read" book. The back of the book contains explanations on how to decipher certain things. And apparently there are movies based off the manga. Stephen had actually watched the movie first and that got him reading the whole series. He has issues with the movies. The anime cartoons and video games (for all manga) are fine. But the movies, he says, feel like much of the storyline is stripped away. It feels watered down.
Stephen got addicted to manga/anime sometime in high school. Many of his classmates and friends were reading manga so he started getting into it because of them and, thus, became the group who devoured anything and everything manga. He's into Yu-Gi-Oh and Shonen Jump/Naruto. I smiled and asked him if he really enjoyed Naruto Shippuden alot then confessed that Naruto is one of our projects and that VIZ Media is one of our clients. Stephen's face dropped. "Wait, you work with Naruto? As in YOU WORK WITH NARUTO??" I didn't know if this outburst was him about to shun me or hug me. Thankfully it was the latter. I explained how my company works on Naruto Shippuden, told him about Naruto.com and the Watch & Win contest we were promoting, how we will be marketing Naruto's 10th Anniversary later in the year, and how I had a Naruto headband that I could give him. Stephen's eyes lit up like a Christmas tree! After talking for a bit I ran back upstairs and grabbed my Naruto headband. I figured Stephen would appreciate it more however I kept my Akamaru bag - I fought to get one so I am clinging to that, sir! I tried to see if we had any DVDs or figurines available but didn't know if they were already accounted for. I will have to ask the client to send me some items for my new friend.
It was really neat hearing Stephen explain the different Naruto characters to me. He was like my own personal character guide! He looked at the symbol on the headband and explained why there was a slash in the middle and so on. His sheer enthusiasm and passion beaming off of him got me really excited and happy. Before heading home I asked Stephen to recommend a manga I should get into. I am not as well-versed in it as I probably should be. He asked me what I was into and listed off a few genres. "Are you into adventure, comedy, drama...?" I thought about it for a bit. "I suppose I'd like to read adventure with a dark edge." He recommended "Inuyasha" by Rumiko Takahashi. I looked up the books when I got home and saw girls on the cover. Badass girls? Heck yes! I told him I would check it out along with the Death Note series since the premise has got me curious. He told me I could visit a Border's and just explore the Manga section. "Everything is in alphabetical order. Even if you don't know what you're looking for you're bound to find something that pops out at you."
Do you have a favourite manga? If so, why do you like it? What is the story's background?
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